Was a texting pilot behind JFK runway fail?

A small charter aircraft is taxiing along a runway at New York's JFK airport. The pilot is allegedly so keen to use his cell phone that he may not have been paying full attention, and the plane strikes ground lights.

Surely, though, few would take that same cavalier attitude if they were piloting a plane. Somehow, one imagines that this task requires a little more concentration, amid the prospect of even more serious danger.

Yet it seems that one pilot of a small charter plane may have needed -- or perhaps merely wanted -- to use his cell phone while he was taxiing toward takeoff on Thursday evening.

As it happens, he wasn't wafting along the slipways of some tiny regional airport in Alberta. No, he was at JFK.

The result, one suspects, incited a little swearing. For he plowed into ground lights, damaging the plane's propellers. (NYC Aviation has the pictures.)

The FAA is reportedly investigating the incident, which allegedly caused the runway to be closed for two hours.

I confess I've never heard of a pilot being involved in an accident while using a cell phone.

In this case, it isn't clear whether he was allegedly talking or texting.

Some small part of me hopes that he was texting, as this would prove that no one is immune from the peculiar temptation of typing and chatting while you're supposed to be doing something far more important.

About the author

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world.
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